By Allison Steele/Philly.com/September 6 2016 CAMDEN –

For 13 Camden kids, help with school and family life arrived in an unexpected place last fall: at home, during visits with district administrators and even the superintendent.

The visits were part of a pilot program aimed at treating the root causes of problems that interfere in the lives of Camden's students and prevent them from succeeding.

Spending time with the struggling students, school officials encountered more easily solvable problems, such as a student who could not get to school safely, to complicated issues such as a child who needed to move to a safer home.

A year later, some of the students' lives have improved in modest ways, said Superintendent Paymon Rouhanifard, and this year the program will expand to 200 kids. The district is seeking private and federal funding to pay for training and management - costs that could reach $3 million over the next three years.

Rouhanifard said it may take years before officials can measure success, but he believes the results will be significant.

"We're playing the long game," Rouhanifard said last week. "This is as complex as our work gets."

Click here to read more about the program.